Traditionally, above-ground planting beds have had metal, wooden or rigid plastic outer walls. In recent years there have been developed a variety of planting beds with outer walls made of air and moisture permeable, non-woven, fabric to promote healthy plant growth. Some of these use a metal, wooden or plastic frame, or strapping or structurally modified walls to maintain the walls in a desired shape. Those beds that do not use frames or strapping or structurally modified walls are limited to a cylindrical shape to which contained media would naturally force the walls of a non-rigid bed.
In contrast to the prior art, the present invention provides above-ground planting beds in non-cylindrical shapes, such as square, oval or rectangular shapes or variations thereof, without requiring rigid frames or strapping, and yet can be made of desirable air and moisture permeable, relatively inexpensive, material.
The present invention accomplishes the desired results using cylindrical or semi-cylindrical reinforcing inner walls of material similar to the material of the outer walls to retain plant growth media therein, and, advantageously, form compartments that optionally may contain different plant growth media to provide different growing conditions for different plants.
Preferably, all of the components are inexpensively formed from relatively light-weight, flexible material that is substantially non-freestanding for ease of collapsing and folding of the bed when not in use for compact handling, shipping and storage. The material is air and moisture permeable and collapsible fabric, more preferably non-woven, needle-punched polymeric, preferably a polypropylene geotextile fabric.